Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Mittens and More!

Didn't get as much work done on the second mitten as I'd hoped. Spent a good part of the afternoon running errands (mailed out the last of our out of town gifts) and getting in some last minute shopping for stuff to finish making stuff for Christmas. However with a bit of planning on my part today, I should be able to get it finished. Maybe even dyed!I discovered a new way of doing an increase. And it really is very close to being invisible. On the mitten on the right I made my gusset increases by lifting the bar between the sts to M1. On the left I knit into the front loop of the st below going in from left to right. You can see the M1 is a bit "bigger" as it appears and there is a definite change in the sts. With knitting into the st below, there is just a tiny distortion of the st but you really have to know what you're looking for to find it. Try it next time!Every Friday, Kathleen has some paper dolls on her site that can be printed out. Yesterday, one of the things I went to buy was card stock to print some of the dolls out. I haven't decided if the clothes should be on card stock or not.... What do you think? Anyway, this is part of the Christmas presents for my granddaughters. I figure it should keep them busy cutting for a good part of Christmas vacation! And playing for the rest of it!

Sweet Paul's idea was to cut up a thrift store sweater to make this candle glass cozy. But...being knitters, we could figure out a way to make it ourselves, yes?Ice candles. Did you ever make these? My dad was a church candle salesman, so we always had candle stubs laying around. My dad and I used to make these every few years for teacher gifts. They are so easy they are kind of anti-climactic.

Simplify the holidays. EZ says it all: “Is an exciting new improved Christmas every year really necessary? Is it in the spirit of the Solstice? The human heart hankers after stability and tradition. The feel and atmosphere of Christmases past, the anticipation of those to come, and the magic presence of Christmas now should all blend and blur, to give the distraught soul something to hang on to in a year bedeviled by new improved machines, soaps, music, spectator sports and recipes, many of which will prove to be dull, destructive, and sometimes downright damnable.”

Did you know that over 80% of the water Americans use deals with flushing the toilet? I'm jus' sayin'....